The present invention is an improvement over the apparatus disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,129,229. The apparatus disclosed in said patent has performed satisfactorily with various types of articles. I have found that certain types of articles cannot be reliably dispensed by the apparatus disclosed in said patent wherein the articles are pushed fowardly by a pusher. Thus, a problem has developed in dispensing articles which are thin and in the form of a substrate such as an envelope containing greeting cards, books, phonograph records, tape cassettes, etc. Another type of article which is difficult to dispense with apparatus in accordance with the prior art are articles which are in the form of a substrate but are compressible to some extent such as sponges, paper products, etc.
The present invention is directed to a solution of the problem of how to reliably control the dispensing of thin substrates having a thickness as small as 1/8 of an inch. The present invention also provides a solution to the problem of how to dispense articles which are compressible and cannot be reliably dispensed by pushing on the last article in a lane as taught by the above mentioned patent.